


The Day You Were Born

by Agmir



Category: Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness, Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25233826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agmir/pseuds/Agmir
Summary: "Why are you like this?" Chelsea had asked Vaughn only once before.  He knew she was only trying to understand him, but it angered him nonetheless.  He'd never given her a real answer because it was complicated.Years later, holding his newborn daughter for the first time, the pain of his childhood comes flooding back.  As he looks back on his previous years, he vows he will give his daughter the childhood he never had.
Relationships: Chelsea/Vaughn | Waltz (Harvest Moon)
Kudos: 20





	The Day You Were Born

Vaughn stared down at the little face that lay in his hands, scrunched up into a pout. Before another wail could escape her lips, he hummed the same low tune he always did when he was comforting a sick cow.

The baby’s face relaxed again and she looked up at him with wide, violet-blue eyes.

His baby’s face.

She had come out with a shock of silvery white hair, the exact shade of his own. Her skin was a porcelain pink. Not just the delicate pinkish tone of a newborn, but the kind of light pink that would never darken, the kind that possessed the absence of melanin and could never be exposed to the sun for too long. It was the same kind of pink he was.

_“Why do you always wear layers even when it’s hot out?”_

_“Do you wear colored contacts?”_

_“What kind of bleach do you use to make your hair like that?”_

Those were some of the more benign questions he got while growing up. He knew she would likely get them too.

_“That’s not my kid! That’s an albino freak.”_

His father’s words had been the worst of all when he had been born. Of course, he’d only been a baby and couldn’t remember it, but the words had stung for his mother as she lay in the hospital bed, recovering and holding their new infant son.

“What a natural!” the midwife exclaimed, smiling. Vaughn looked back to see Chelsea beaming. She was dressed in a bathrobe, now comfortably sitting on the couch while the midwife took another blood pressure check.

“Most of the first-time dads are afraid to hold their babies,” the midwife continued. “But Vaughn here is like some kinda baby whisperer.”

“I — I don’t know anything about being a father,” he stammered quietly, cheeks reddening. He turned away quickly to hide his embarrassment. His daughter’s eyes stayed open and looked around curiously, blinking in long, exaggerated intervals. Outside the window, cars whizzed by below on the snow-edged road in the dark.

Chelsea had chosen a home birth in the city. Since Vaughn still worked in the city one day a week, they had kept his apartment, and regularly used it as an escape from the island and farm for the occasional weekend away. The city hospital was just right around the corner, and for low-risk pregnancies they offered the midwife-homebirth option, so it was the perfect choice.

Labor and birth had been fast for her, almost textbook. Vaughn was supposed to set up an inflatable birthing tub in the living room, but Chelsea had decided last minute she didn’t want it, and by the time the midwife arrived, the baby was ready to enter the world anyway. All of it was a blur for Vaughn— there had been lots of screaming, he’d attempted to hold her hand but she pushed it away, then there was a tiny cry and the midwife offering for him to cut the umbilical cord, and before he knew it, the tiny, blanketed bundle had been foisted into his arms for safe-keeping while Chelsea got cleaned up.

Looking down at this tiny stranger was a surreal experience for him. She was half of him, looked exactly like him, and yet was this brand new being that hadn’t even existed just nine months before. He felt this inexplicable urge to protect her from any harm at all costs. Was this love? He’d never experienced any kind of parental love, from what he could remember. He didn’t know what it was like to be provided for, to be fed regularly, to be kept warm, to be protected.

_“You take any more bread from the fridge, I’ma put a lock on it and kick you out of the house!”_

He was seven years old the day he had figured out how to make a sandwich. He knew what the ingredients consisted of from being given them in school, but no one had ever showed him how to make one. It was a Saturday, and half-past noon and he hadn’t eaten since lunch at school the day before. His father had been sleeping in, possibly still drunk from the night before. Vaughn had tiptoed as quietly as possible, but his stomach was growling with such fierce pangs of hunger that he became emboldened enough to pass his father’s door and enter the small kitchen. There was no jelly or peanut butter- just half a loaf of sliced bread and mayonnaise. It was better than nothing, and he had eagerly spread the mayonnaise across two slices, slapped them together and scarfed it down. Then another two, and then almost another two but he’d been caught. His father had not hit him that time, but he ran to his room and stayed for the rest of the day until he’d fallen asleep for the night on the bare mattress.

“I will never let you go hungry,” he whispered quietly to his daughter, so quietly that only she could hear his words.

“Let’s see if she is ready to try nursing!” the midwife suddenly exclaimed cheerily. Chelsea looked nervous. The midwife took the baby from Vaughn’s arms and carried her over to his wife and positioned mother and baby. They looked as though they’d come straight out of a picture for the promotional material at the hospital’s birthing center. The baby began to cry and Chelsea looked afraid, but soon the baby quietened and was happily latched on to the breast.

“Vaughn,” the midwife began. “You will need to help Chelsea as she gets used to this. Get her a cup of water- and watch how the baby nurses- see her chin? When she does that you know she’s getting the milk.”

All of it felt so weirdly familiar for him from dealing with animals and supervising cow and goat births, and yet this was strange and completely new territory. He grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen and handed it to his wife, feeling as though his small act was nothing compared to everything she had done and was still doing.

“Thanks,” Chelsea murmured, keeping her eyes down on the baby. He watched them a moment, a small smile forming on his face. The pair of them looked beautiful.

His mother had died when he was five years old. He hated that he barely remembered her. He knew she’d had dark hair and dark eyes, and he didn’t really have any memories of being with both her and his father. He knew they’d been married and had him, obviously. But none of his faint memories ever involved them as doing anything together as a family. He didn’t remember the day she’d died either. He only remembered that her absence felt like a great void in his life, and that he suddenly lived in fear of his father. Actually, that wasn’t entirely accurate. He feared his father his whole life, but it was the sudden realization that he had to now stay out of his father’s way. It must have been his mother who’d been keeping him out of his father’s way, shielding him from his wrath.

“What should we name her?” Chelsea’s voice brought him back into the moment.

Vaughn was quiet for a moment.

“Odessa,” he said softly. “Odessa was my mother’s name. What do you think?”

“I like it,” she said, smiling. They’d discussed baby names before, but could never agree on anything. He’d never mentioned using Odessa before though. He’d also never really talked about his mother before with her. She’d asked him about his mother, but he’d simply told her that she died when he was young and he just didn’t have the energy to say much more than that.

The truth is that his mother had committed suicide while he was at school. He’d been in kindergarten. His relative, “Aunt” Mirabelle, as he called her, had told him it was an accident. He was pretty sure Mirabelle was some kind of cousin of his father’s, but he wasn’t entirely sure how they were actually related. But she became the only solid, adult presence in his life and after his mother’s death his dad sent him to spend his summers with her and Julia. 

He was fourteen when he discovered it wasn’t an accident. He’d been locked out of the house after school by his father and so he’d wandered to the library. He did this on cold days because it was warm inside. Upstairs was a microfilm collection, and for 30 minutes at a time you could view old newspaper articles, obituaries, public records and almost anything else by year.

He’d found the 1988 death certificates easily. _“Suicide by hanging”_ the cause of death had simply read. The realization of what all of that implied had washed over his adolescent mind, and he left the building in a daze, microfilm still in the machine and all. The sun had already set and the temperature grew even colder, but he walked angrily all the way to the lake that edged the city. 

_“You fucking left me!”_ he had screamed into the darkness, his voice echoing over the freezing water.

This was the first time in his life he’d felt truly abandoned. He’d spent all of these years thinking she loved him and it was a terrible accident that had taken her away from him. Now he realized that she probably couldn’t take the monster his father was any longer, and had left him to fend for himself. A five-year-old, left to fend for himself. 

Of course, now that he was an adult, he knew his mother likely did love him and her death had little to do with him at all. That was the logical side of his brain trying to talk sense into the other side, at least. But that day at the library had changed him. He became acutely aware of how unlovable he must be. He understood that it was this barrier that set him apart from the rest of the people in his world- at school, eventually at work, and in any social circles he might come to be involved with.

“I think she’s asleep,” Chelsea whispered. The baby’s eyes were closed and she had the most relaxed expression on her face. Her hands that had once balled up into little fists were now lax, and her tiny fingers splayed across her chest.

“One more blood pressure check and then I’ll leave for the day,” the midwife said. Her shift was ending and a new midwife would be in later to do another usual quick checkup on mother and baby.

Vaughn squinted at the clock. It was 5:32am. The winter sun hadn’t risen yet.

“You can put her in the crib if you want,” Chelsea said softly, handing the baby to him, but he wanted to hold her again.

He carried her back to the spot near the window where he’d held her before and looked down. The street outside was still sleepy, but the light in the bakery shop was now on, and two people stood waiting at the bus stop. Odessa sighed in her sleep, and her warm little body felt comforting in his arms.

He watched her little face as she first frowned and then smiled in her sleep. He wondered what she must be dreaming about. What would such a tiny baby have to frown for?

“I will always protect you,” he whispered to her.

Everything up to now in his life had been earned through hard work and persistence. At sixteen, just when he was old enough to get a job, he begged for work at a warehouse. The boss had been hesitant because of his age, but he insisted he wanted full-time work. He dropped out of school and arrived to work early every single day he was scheduled.

Quitting school was a natural choice for him. In hindsight, it perhaps wasn’t the best decision, but at the time it was the only decision. He was a bright kid, but he was failing all of his classes. He simply didn’t have the stability at home to do homework or write term papers, and it was awfully hard to pay attention and learn anything when he was always hungry. He was unpopular and had few friends. He wore clothing that was oftentimes too small and out of fashion, since nearly everything he owned was a hand-me-down of some sort. One particularly embarrassing time was when he was twelve and didn’t have any shoes to wear at all— he’d outgrown his only pair. He’d made it as far as the bus stop when the other kid waiting there noticed immediately and asked him where they were. Mortified, he turned around and went home, cheeks burning. Only, he didn’t really go home because he knew his father would be there, so instead he sat in the dirt at the edge of his yard behind a bush where he knew his father wouldn’t see him.

 _“Honey, aren’t you cold?”_ the neighbor’s voice had startled him.

Terrified, he had gotten up to run away, but something about the way she smiled stopped him. She convinced him to come inside, and fed him hot chocolate and cereal with real milk. He discovered she was the mother of the child at the bus stop who had asked where his shoes were. She asked him all kinds of questions, like where did his father work, where was his mother, why didn’t he have any shoes, when was the last time he ate, did his father ever get really angry. He’d answered every question hesitatingly but honestly, not quite understanding why she was asking such things. He was just really happy to have something to eat.

She explained that she had another son who was much older, and handed him a trash bag filled with shoes and old clothes in his size. She seemed to innately understand his fear of going home before the school day was over, so she let him play her kids’ video games until then.

Two days later, the school counselor pulled him out of class for thirty minutes and asked all sorts of questions about his father and what things were like at home. For a small period of time, he walked around both terrified and gleeful at the possibility that another adult knew what his father was like and might take him away to a real home, but nothing ever transpired.

Vaughn’s focus shifted back to the present as Odessa squirmed and stretched out her arms, dreaming. He was still holding her by the window. He glanced over to the couch and saw Chelsea had fallen asleep. He must not have noticed the midwife leaving.

Quietly, he moved over to the chaise and reclined back, moving the sleeping baby to lay across his chest. He didn’t know why, but he just couldn’t bring himself to put her down in the crib. His mind was racing and he knew sleep would not come even if he tried, and so simply holding her felt like the most natural thing to do in the moment.

 _“Ya got a good work ethic,”_ the warehouse manager had told him. Vaughn was almost seventeen and it had been nearly a year since he dropped out of school and began full time work. He’d been called into the office, and he’d nervously made his way there thinking he was about to get fired or something. Instead, the manager offered him a three dollar raise for all of his hard work.

Vaughn smiled slightly to himself. That was a turning point in his life. He learned that if he worked hard, he could escape the hell of his home life. Instead of relying on his drunk dad to maybe buy food for the fridge or having to save half of his school-provided lunch to eat for dinner later, he could earn his own money and eat at an actual restaurant or buy his own real groceries himself. He would no longer have to wear hand-me-downs given to him by a well-meaning stranger. He could, for once, pick out something he liked, something that actually fit, and actually matched. He could look good for once.

This was also about the time he discovered women. Actually, they discovered him. But it was strange: almost overnight he went from awkward and misfit, to well, awkward, misfit and dare he say, hot? By eighteen, he’d grown pretty tall for his age. Aunt Mirabelle had told him that his grandfather (his mother’s father who had died before he was born) had been a tall man with pale blond hair and piercing blue eyes. He often wondered if it was from his grandfather that he’d inherited his albinism. Coupled with his tall stature and mature and solemn countenance, he could easily pass for being at least twenty-one, and so the guys in their twenties at the warehouse pooled together and got him a fake ID and dragged him along when they went to the nightclubs.

The first time he had a girl approach him was confusing. He’d been sitting at a table with some of the guys when she appeared, looking only at him. 

_“My friend over there likes you,”_ she said very matter-of-fact, and then slid a piece of paper with a phone number onto the table. One of the guys snickered and punched his shoulder.

Vaughn looked over to the girl in question. She was pretty, with red hair and likely in her twenties. He looked down, blushing fiercely.

 _“Dude, she’s hot as fuck. Should we out him?”_ one of the guys teased. 

_“We’ll get kicked out if they know he’s underage!”_ another said back.

In the end, they decided to go back to an apartment one of the guys was renting and invite the girls. From there, they only drank more. Vaughn woke up the next morning on the guy’s living room floor, hungover, naked and next to the redhead, and having not remembered a thing.

After that, he swore to never get that drunk again. He felt used and worthless. And worse, being that drunk also reminded him of his father.

In the years that followed, Vaughn saved his money and eventually got his own apartment, first moving into the cheapest studio he could find, and then actually purchasing the very one they were sitting in now.

He glanced down at his daughter on his chest. Never in a million years did he think he would find a partner like Chelsea and have the most precious little being come into their lives and live with him inside these walls. When he bought this apartment, he never thought it would one day house _his own child_.

 _Never…_ he thought to himself.

Before Chelsea, his relationships consisted of casual affairs. He had no problem at all attracting women (and sometimes men), but it was the getting-to-know-you part where things always went awry. He had no family to bring anyone home to, and they always wanted him to do uncomfortable things like open up and show feelings.

He was sometimes embarrassed about the attention he got from his looks. In school, he was awkward and gangly, with legs that were too long for his pants, and the other kids stared at his hair and skin and eyes, calling him “Caspar” and “The Snowman” and “Fake Eyes”. As he grew into himself in his twenties, his gangliness gave way to a chiseled look, his arms and legs and core grew stronger and muscular from the hard work at the warehouse, and his hair and eyes garnered a different type of look in peoples’ eyes. “Ya know, you could be a model,” was something he got a lot. He was viewed as some exotic, otherworldly being, and people often asked what his ethnicity was. He hated that.

His taste in clothes veered somewhat toward the expensive side of things, since purchasing clothes was a luxury he never had as a child, he took great pleasure in being able to buy them himself with his hard-earned money. His Stetson hat became his prized possession, and indeed it helped him to fit in and impress his prospective clients as he moved up the ladder and into the realm of animal dealing.

He watched as Chelsea sighed in her sleep on the couch a few feet away from him. She was the only girl who never gave up on him. Even when he was the absolute worst to her (which he now regretted), she never wavered. She seemed to understand his need for privacy and never forced him to tell her what was on his mind when he was in a bad mood. She seemed to understand that he had reasons for the way he was, even if he wouldn’t tell her why. She also became the only one he could open up to. He still found it incredibly difficult to talk about any emotions he felt, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel them. If anything, he felt them too much. And feeling things too much is painful.

This was also why he felt such an affinity with animals. They seemed to pick up on others’ feelings and no words were needed. He could relate to them.

Chelsea had also been the only girl he never slept with right away. In fact, it took them several months, and by then they’d flirted with each other and went out together so much that it seemed the only thing missing. She had actually started to question whether or not he liked her because he hadn’t made the move. The truth was that he knew she was special, and he was afraid that if he did, they’d do it and he’d lose her. Everything always seemed to go downhill after that with previous girlfriends.

But still, she stayed. And eventually, when it became obvious that there was no one else in the world for him but her, he proposed. Actually, it was she who had given him the blue feather, but he’d been planning to do it for a while. She had only sped the process up a little.

“Just wait until we take you back to the farm,” he whispered softly to Odessa. 

She stirred slightly in her sleep and he sighed contentedly. He had no idea what he’d done to deserve all of this, but it was everything he ever wanted, even if he hadn’t realized it before.


End file.
